Sense just died out

[Rob.Aus]

Hi there,

Couple days ago, my fitbit sense just suddenly died out while I was watering the garden. I remember that it had at least 40% battery left.

I tried to put on to charge for some time, then it came back to live and showed 97% battery charged. Then continued to wear it when I went to bed, about half an hour later, it died out again.

When I said died out, it means screen off, no lights emitting from the back sensors, no bluetooth connection to iPhone, basically in show down mode.

Then I cleaned the back of the watch with alcohol based hand sanitizer, it brought the watch back to a crazy mode: vibrates, vibrates, then nothing happened.

Then I played around the button, the logo came on and off, until the logo became frozen on the screen.

Then charged it, and tried with the button again and eventually it never power up (no vibration, no logo) again.

Now it just becomes a brick no matter what i did to it.

I have every single suggestions from googling results including:

1. Pressing the ONLY button for 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 1 minutes, 2 minutes ....
2. Cleaning up the contacts.
3. Charge and discharge.

I bought it second-hand (but basically brand new when bought), only used it for about 1 year (it behaved quite well in the past year). I have rung up the customer service in Australia, was told that there is nothing can be done!!!

I am so disappointed with Fitbit, it cost me over 200 dollars, and just used for about 1 year, the most expensive usage of a fitness tracker in the world! 

PS.

I suspect that there either some of the memory sector is corrupted or glitches with the firmware, to cause it into a infinite loop when power up, unfortunately there is no way to perform a factory reset if it doesn't respond to the pressing of the ONLY button.

I have tried to trigger it to power on by let the battery drain and re-charge it, but no luck (I am very sure that the cable and charger is perfectly working).

Sign... 

[Rob.Aus]

Just had a chat with my colleague who is using fitbit also.

I was told that the fitbit on his wrist is the THIRD replacement!

He is lucky enough with warranty.

[Guy_]

Hi @Rob.Aus - it would seem the watch got water in it, if under warranty get it replaced.

[Rob.Aus]

@Guy_ Thanks for the input. unfortunately I bought second hand, and i think it has already passed the warranty.

If just water in and hopefully it may come back to life when it's dried inside.

Somehow they proclaim water proof of the product, and it just sucks.

[Guy_ · Accepted solution]

@Rob.Aus- thanks, unfortunately it is unlikely to recover after water damage as it may be too invasive.

But try drying in a bag of rice for some days, and if it gets hot while charging stop immediately. Mine did recover but will never last more than a day and works oddly so not much use.

You can chat via the Fitbit App, click profile photo, Help & Support, Contact Customer Support, they can check the warranty which may be 2 years and still valid, if bought originally from an authorised dealer, don't complicate with second hand purchase.

[Rob.Aus]

@Guy_ 

Many thanks, I should have thought of that! Surely, will give it a try by burry it in the rice for some days.

Will come and update if good luck!

Cheers.